What You Didn't Know
by Don'tClimbOnThat
Summary: Sometimes you don't get answers to your questions. You might never know the real reason why he did it, what he said, how he felt. But that's how life goes, and that's how death goes, too.


Sora opened his eyes slowly, eyelids fluttering with the effort. The sharp pain spreading throughout his body made even small processes take much longer than usual. He recognized that he was sprawled, flat on his back, in the middle of the street. He smelled the faint but recognizable scent of asphalt, felt the small gravel pebbles digging into his bare arms. He heard people yelling, a child crying, car engines humming, and what might have been the high-pitched shriek of sirens in the distance, and the volume of these sounds seemed to grow and fade in waves. The _Back to the Future_ theme song was still inexplicably stuck in his head, as it had been all day, even though Sora was pretty sure he hadn't watched any of those movies recently. He saw Riku hovering above him, which would have confused Sora except that the pain had made such emotions as confusion irrelevant. So Sora simply accepted that Riku was crouched over him as he lay in the street, and noticed that he seemed very sad. Or maybe he looked worried. Or distraught, even. Sora had never seen Riku look sad before, let alone worried or distraught. The only expressions Sora ever saw those sharp, but admittedly handsome features make were the jeering, taunting sort of smirks he had when he harassed Sora at school, or the sadistic smiles he had when he slammed Sora into lockers or knocked him into dumpsters. He hardly knew that face was capable of anything else.

But Sora did not think anything about this new facial expression because his mind was occupied with trying to breath when his chest felt like it had crumbled and caved in and his back felt like it probably was not in a single piece anymore. The agony grew as he became more conscious, more able to feel all the things that were wrong. With each intake of breath came the sensation of a hundred tiny claws raking at his lungs, and each exhale brought the fear that his frail chest cavity would collapse as if it were constructed of dead twigs. He couldn't move, didn't even try, knew that to do so would be useless and would only hurt more. There was a warm trickle of something liquid running down his forehead—blood, probably. Sora's heartbeat was loud in his ears, and seemed to shake his body just slightly with the force of its pumping. He had a fleeting impression that his heart was trying its best to pick up the slack for all the other organs and body parts that were suddenly not functioning properly.

Riku was saying something, and a pulse of sound brought Sora's attention back to the boy above him. His longish, white-blond hair, back lit as it was, reflected the sunlight harshly, and Sora had to squint to look at him. He was saying something about an ambulance, but Sora knew that an ambulance wouldn't help him, and that he was not, as Riku was insisting, going to be okay. He was not in the least bit concerned about this, however. The fact that he was going to die very soon had been coped with in the split second when Sora had decided to run out into the street. But the task at hand had been more important than worries about whether or not he would be alive anymore.

And so Sora was quite content to lie there, more or less in the arms of the popular boy who bullied him at school, looking up at Riku's oddly sad face, with the _Back to the Future_ theme running over and over in his head, even if his chest burned and his back screamed and he couldn't feel his legs. There was no more insecurity in the last moments before death, no more pressure, no more stress, no more fear. All his previous problems and concerns were rendered trivial and useless, and Sora found himself strangely at peace, which he had not been in quite some time. There was no point in being afraid of death. It wasn't like there was anything he could do about it now, anyway.

Suddenly, a pressing question bubbled and surfaced in Sora's mind, an actual concern, and he worked to open his mouth and take a breath and form words. Slowly, so slowly—the pain made everything slow. Riku noticed the attempt and stopped whatever it was he had been talking about to focus his attention on what Sora was trying to say.

"Are...they…okay?" was what Sora eventually got out.

"Yeah, they're okay. They're right over there. The kid is crying, but she's fine. Doesn't even look like there's a scratch on either of them. The older one looks a bit shook up. Apparently she's deaf, that's why they didn't notice the car coming. Their mom is there, too. She was in a store or something. But you saved, them. You did. You pushed them out of the way in time," Riku replied quickly, almost eagerly, as if all he wanted to do was to help Sora. Which was different. Weird, even.

"Good," he breathed, as a satisfied smile softened his features. At least his death would not be pointless. He had achieved something, he had saved someone. Two people were alive because of him, and maybe they would grow up and be happy in life.

Sora may not have been the smartest kid, nor the most popular or ambitious, but he had made a difference. And he was happy. He hadn't been happy in a long time. He had been good at faking it, though—had perfected fake smiles when he would rather scream, and fake friendliness when he would rather curl up in a corner alone. He had done it in a determined attempt to battle the overwhelming loneliness that always seemed to creep into his skin no matter what he did, no matter whether or not it even made sense for him to feel that way. Because how can you feel alone when you are surrounded by people? How can you feel like no one understands you if you're talking all the time? (And yet, there it was, waiting for him when he got home to a quite house where everyone either ignored or yelled at him, when he was shoved painfully into lockers while the other kids walked on by, when out of all his friends, only Kairi really seemed to have time to spare for him.) But now! Now he was truly happy, and the relief and peace he felt was genuine at last. Ha had made a positive difference in the world. And that made getting hit by a speeding car totally worth it, he thought.

He blinked slowly and thought he saw the shadows of other people gathering around him in his periphery vision, the paramedics, maybe, but he couldn't be sure. He couldn't move his head to see. The blood on his face was starting to itch, but he couldn't move to wipe it away. That was even worse.

Riku was talking again, and he sounded upset and urgent, sounded like maybe he was about to cry. Which was nothing even approaching a tone that Sora had ever heard Riku's voice produce. It was much different than the taunting, mocking, or arrogant sounds Sora knew well. But the voice was suddenly very far away and Sora couldn't understand him. The ear-to-brain function was no longer in operation. So instead he looked up at the sky since it was the easiest thing to look at, flat on his back as he was. It was very blue today, a beautiful, bright, solid color that stretched in an endless reach, covering everything yet touching nothing. The expanse was blemished only by a single, small, lopsided puff of a cloud, which floated along lazily like an afterthought or a small hiccup in the air, free and blissful. It looked like a deformed shoe, or maybe like a cat on a raft. The cat was laughing.

Sora thought about what his parents and his brothers might do when they found out what happened to him— if Roxas would even care at all, if Cloud would be able to comfort their mom and dad, how much comforting would even be necessary in the first place, since he and his parents had never exactly gotten along. He wasn't the smart one, after all, or the mature one, or the one most hard-working or goal-oriented, and that seemed to be what his parents cared about most—he wasn't even the good-looking one to make up for any of that. He was just average. Average in all the things his parents measured him by, at least. He had been the loud one, the rambunctious one, the one who played in the dirt and spilled soda on the couch and got rips in his shirts from climbing trees. Nothing like his smart, quiet (if rather moody) twin Roxas, and, more importantly, nothing like the perfect, polite, studious pre-law student Cloud. No, his family would be just fine. Just one less person to yell at. One less person to be disappointed in. He thought about what Kairi would do when she got the news. She would probably be mad at him for doing something so stupid as running in front of a car to save some kids and leaving her without a best friend, he decided, and if Sora could have chuckled, he would have. He thought about the _Back to the Future _theme still playing in his head, and decided that on some level, this whole situation was rather funny. He thought about what would happen to the two girls he had saved, what they might do tomorrow. He wondered what death was like.

Sora followed the slow movement of the solitary little cloud in its lazy path across the sky as his breathing became increasingly labored, shallow gasps. He focused on the misshapen white fluff as his vision grew dark and the sharp throbbing in his chest seemed to engulf him. And then he didn't have to wonder anymore.

.

* * *

.

Riku sipped his newly-purchased cup of coffee slowly; There was nothing worse, in his opinion, than a burnt tongue. He stepped out of the dark, crowded coffee shop, and the contrasting brightness of the afternoon sun had Riku wishing he'd remembered his sunglasses. Sometimes he forgot that even though it wasn't summer, the sun could still be too bright, especially with a perfectly cloudless sky like this. How annoying. Maybe he should have gotten iced coffee instead. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and pulled it out to read the text message it presented him. It was from Tidus.

**Sup dude! Partaaay my place 9. U in?**

Of course he was_ in_. It was Saturday, after all, and Tidus' parties were always good. Tidus' dad was a retired athlete, and therefore rich, with a big house and a nice pool. Plus, he didn't care if minors were drinking, and tended to turn a blind eye to whatever boisterous antics his son and his friends were up to. Last minute plans like this were a normal occurrence for Tidus, and late notice did not usually mean a small attendance. So Riku replied:

**Duh**

And he now had something too look forward to. Because he hadn't exactly been looking forward to a night in with the parents.

Riku ran his fingers through his hair to get his fashionably overgrown bangs out of his eyes as he continued down the street. Another sip of his coffee proved it to now be the perfect temperature, and he swallowed it down happily while lost in various thoughts surrounding plans for later that night.

He looked up, paused for a moment when he recognized someone, and then smirked at the sight of that someone. One block down and across the street was none other than Sora, his personal walking, talking, sometimes-jumping punching bag.

He was making his way down the sidewalk in Riku's general direction, smiling absently at nothing, as usual. Being generally dorky, as usual. With his messy hair full of cowlicks sticking up and out in every direction, looking like he'd never picked up a comb in his life, or maybe like he'd been electrocuted, and those stupid big blue eyes like a doll's which looked at the world like everything was ridiculously exciting. He was a little on the short side, made up of skinny arms and legs, with almost comically big feet that he had yet to grow into.

And Riku hated him. Hated every bit, from the stupid hair to the stupid eyes to the stupid feet. Because Sora was always smiling, always laughing, always so fucking happy-go-lucky, and it just made Riku want to do everything in his power to make it stop, to wipe that goddamned smile off his puppy face. Riku was usually pretty successful in his attempts, but somehow that kid would always bounce back, and it bothered the hell out of Riku. His friends would sometimes question his admittedly rather intense loathing, but it wasn't an _obsession_ like stupid Yuffie was always accusing him of. They didn't understand that Sora's very presence irritated Riku like a small sharp rock in his shoe. Well, his friend Seifer understood, since he felt the same way about that punk Hayner.

Riku paused on the sidewalk, drank his coffee, and thought about whether or not he wanted to harass Sora right now. On the one hand, Riku had things to do today, and bullying did tend to eat up bit of time. But on the other hand, making Sora scowl at him always made him feel just that much better. And his week had been pretty dreadful, to say the least, what with his dad forcing college pamphlets down his throat non-stop, and Yuffie blowing up at him the other day—over _nothing_, what a fucking drama-queen— and sending him all those nasty texts. If she was going to Tidus' party tonight, Riku didn't know what he was going to do. And if she had talked about it to Yuna and the others (which she probably had because she had a big mouth like that) he would have to avoid them, too.

Yeah, he would very much like to harass Sora right now.

Decision made, Riku continued down the street toward his target. He looked up to find Sora had stopped at the corner on the other side of the street, looking at the crosswalk which was currently green for pedestrians. Instead of crossing, Sora just stood there, hands in his jean pockets, clearly focused something. Riku followed his gaze and saw the only people in the crosswalk, two little girls making their way to Riku's side of the street. The older one, maybe ten or eleven, was a wispy little blonde thing in a white sundress, and she was holding the hand of a kid of about four or so with chin-length black hair and overalls. The younger one ambled along slowly, getting distracted by her shoes or the people behind her or the buttons on her overalls, and the blonde helped her along patiently. Riku wasn't sure what Sora thought was so interesting about them.

Some distant honking alerted Riku to the sleek black Mercedes weaving dangerously between traffic a couple blocks down. It was revving it's engine like a thing possessed and moving at a definitely illegal speed for this 35-zone down an open lane in his direction. Or, more accurately, in the direction of the two girls still making their way across the street.

But the car would stop at the light. It had to stop at the light. It didn't look like it was going to stop at the light. It wasn't going to stop. And even if it did, it was going too fast to be able to stop soon enough and—_Oh god get out of the way oh my god it's going to hit them it's going to hit those girls why aren't they looking up why aren't they moving out of the way why are they just walking along like idiots move it's going to kill you oh my god!_

Riku's eyes happened to flick over to Sora (something they seemed to do often, even if Riku didn't mean for them to) and in that moment, Riku swore he saw something in Sora's face change. A firm press of his lips, a slight furrow of his brow, an intensity in his eyes which was surprisingly visible from across the street, like he had decided on something. Like he was about to—

And then Sora was running into the street, faster than anything Riku had ever seen outside the Olympics. He made it to the girls in a flash, tan arms outstretched, and the blonde turned to look at him half a second before those lean muscles _pushed_ those kids with all they had, tossing them clear of the car's path. Sora stumbled a half step from overbalancing.

And that's when the Mercedes hit him.

The tires screeched and the car swerved to the right in a belated and utterly ineffectual attempt to avoid him. Sora was tossed about two feet in the air and three feet forward before landing with a dull thud. The car paused a moment, as if thinking about the situation, before the driver behind those tinted windows slammed the gas pedal and peeled out of the intersection before anyone could so much as blink.

Riku realized he was yelling, but he didn't stop himself. He didn't stop himself from running over to Sora, either, coffee cup forgotten and crashing to the ground with a splatter. Riku's heart was pounding against his chest with panic and adrenaline as he raced the short distance to where Sora lay in the street and knelt beside him. Sora's eyes were closed and he wasn't moving. He was covered in blood from where a large, nasty gash on his head was bleeding profusely, as well as from the innumerable scrapes along his bare arms, and he was laying at an unnatural angle, as if something wasn't quite right with his legs.

Riku's hands were shaky as he leaned over Sora's body to examine him without moving him, because if there was one thing Riku remembered about first aid, it was to not move someone like this in case they had a broken neck. Riku's brain was scrambling to find anything else he might know about what to do in emergencies like this, and wasn't this just the _best _time to forget anything useful and _oh my god this is bad this is really bad he's not moving oh my god is he_—But look, he was breathing! Ragged, shallow breaths, but breathing was breathing and that meant alive.

Temporarily relieved but still definitely freaking the fuck out, Riku looked around. There was a crowd of worried onlookers gathered now, people who had been on the street or who had gotten out of their cars. Some hovered over Riku and Sora, and others over by the two girls now safely on the sidewalk. There was a blonde woman with a terrified look on her face who was quite clearly the older girl's mother, and the two of them were gesturing wildly with their hands. Sign language, Riku realized. The little girl was deaf. That's why they didn't run out of the way, the girl hadn't heard the car coming. The younger girl was wailing loudly by their side.

"Has anyone called the police?" Riku half-shouted to the people nearby.

"I've got them on the phone," replied a tall man to his left wearing red. He had a worn face made up of hard lines, dark, gray-streaked hair, and small-framed sunglasses perched on a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. "They're sending an ambulance."

Riku nodded and turned back to the boy in front of him. His breath caught in his throat when he saw Sora was looking at him. Those big blue eyes were as vibrant as ever, practically glowing (or maybe panic was making Riku imagine strange things) even if they were rather unfocused. This close, Riku noticed how thick and dark his eyelashes were, like a girl's, and had this been any other situation, Riku would have taunted him for it, asked if he was wearing mascara. Called him a girl. And Sora might scowl and say that being called a girl wasn't an insult because a girl was a person too and wasn't worth less than a boy. Or something dumb like that.

"Sora! Sora, can you hear me? Stay with me, okay? You've got to hang in there. Just hang in there. There's an ambulance on the way, that guy just called and there's an ambulance coming. They're going to help, okay? You're going to be fine, just hang in there. The paramedics will be able to help you, and you're going to be fine. It doesn't even look that bad, you know?" Riku could hear himself going into hysterics and tried to calm down. He took a few deep but stuttered breaths to no avail.

Sora, on the other hand, looked completely calm, as if he was entirely at home there in the street, covered in dark blood seeping into the gritty asphalt. The soft, tranquil gaze he gave Riku as he studied him in mild interest helped Riku find his nerves and even out his near-hyperventilating breathing. Which seemed backwards to Riku. The uninjured one should be helping the injured one, not the other way around. But Sora had never really done things the way most people expected anyway, so why should this be any different?

"Sora," he started again once he had composed himself slightly, "You have to survive this. You have to bounce back like you always do. I know you have it in you. Use that annoying fighting spirit you have, the one that has you smiling ten minutes after I throw you in a dumpster. Don't let this beat you."

Sora seemed to be struggling with something, with his lips moving and his breath trying to force out sound. Riku leaned closer, straining to hear him.

"A—ah...are..." He coughed and gasped slightly, and then paused for a moment.

"Are? Are what?" Riku prompted.

"Th...they oh—kuh okay?" He swallowed and panted weakly. Clearly it was extremely painful for him to talk.

"Are they okay? Yeah, they're okay. They're right over there. The kid is crying, but she's fine. Doesn't even look like there's a scratch on either of them. The older one looks a bit shook up. Apparently she's deaf, that's why they didn't notice the car coming. Their mom is there, too. She was in a store or something. But you saved, them. You did. You pushed them out of the way in time."

"Good" Sora said softly, and if Riku hadn't been hovering so close over him, he wouldn't have heard it at all. Sora's face melted into a serene smile at this, and Riku wasn't sure if he had ever seen anything more beautiful than this boy with glowing blue eyes covered in blood and in so much pain he could barely speak but who could still be so relieved at the well-being of someone else.

Riku felt tears start to build up in his eyes, and even though there were people around, he didn't try to will them away like he would have normally. There was something he needed to say, something he needed to tell Sora. He didn't care if any of the strangers around him heard it, either, even if it was his most closely-guarded secret. He didn't care anymore. The ambulance was approaching, it's sirens wailing even louder than the dark-haired girl on the sidewalk, and soon the paramedics would take Sora away, so Riku knew he had to use this time now or else he would never get a chance to say it. He sat up slightly so that he was no longer hovering over Sora, and braced himself. He had to do it.

"Sora, listen to me. I'm so sorry. For everything. I'm sorry for being such an asshole. You didn't deserve that. Y-you don't have to forgive me, I just, I wanted to apologize for all the shit I've done to you. It's just, whenever you're around, I turn into this horrible person, and I don't know why." Tears were running freely down Riku's cheeks by now, and his voice cracked slightly around his suddenly tight throat, but he didn't care. And anyone who did could go fuck themselves. "And I tell everyone that I hate you, but—but I don't really hate you. Who could ever hate you? I hate _myself_ because—well I don't even know. But Sora—fuck, Sora, I love you. And I'm sorry I never said it before now. I'm an idiot. But I do, I always have. And—I don't know, I guess I just didn't know what to do about it—Cuz it's weird, right? Me loving you? So I was mean to you instead. Maybe it was just easier to be mean to you, and I know that's a stupid reason. So I'm sorry. But you don't deserve me anyway. You're too good, too wonderful, you make everyone around you happier just by being there. I'm sure woodland animals follow you around and help you with chores. You—you fucking jump in front of cars to save children! You're amazing and so full of energy and I'm not sure you even know how great you are, how much everyone needs you. But I love you. I love you Sora. Sora!"

But Sora wasn't looking at him anymore. His face was turned toward the sky, his expression serene with a wistful, happy smile. But his once-vibrant eyes were empty. They didn't see the sky anymore. He was very still and very quiet.

"No..." Riku whispered, tearful eyes wide. He grabbed Sora's arm, gripped it tightly and started shaking it. "No no no!" he shouted, practically sobbing. "Sora! Sora! Please! Sora!"

A firm hand on his shoulder stopped him abruptly. Riku looked up through his tears to see a man beside him, the one who had called the ambulance earlier. His eyes were sympathetic behind his sunglasses, even if his face was stern.

"Come on, son. There's nothing more you can do. Let the people do their jobs."

He noticed two paramedics rushing towards them carrying gear and equipment. They spared Riku a sad look as they knelt down beside him, and he nodded and stood to give them room. They placed an oxygen mask over Sora's unseeing face and pressed a defibrillator to his chest.

"Clear!" one shouted. But though the plates jolted his body, Sora didn't stir. "Clear!" They tried again, but still there was nothing. "Clear!" "Clear!" they repeated without response until at last—"Time of death, one thirty-seven."

It took all the self-control he had ever learned from his cold, strict, emotionless father to compose himself and keep from screaming, but compose himself he did, and he somehow managed to slip into his usual expressionless mask. He sniffed and squeezed his eyes closed and took deep breaths, white-knuckled fists clenched at his sides. When he opened his eyes he looked anywhere except Sora.

Police had arrived, a gruff middle-aged man grinding a toothpick between his teeth, and a young dark-haired woman. The woman was talking to the blonde girl's mother, who was interpreting the little girl's signing about (he assumed) what had happened. The man walked over in his direction and began questioning the man in sunglasses next to him. There were other officers who had started directing traffic away from the scene.

Riku took a few steps back, eyes unfocused and unseeing. He felt numb. Or, at least, he was trying to make himself feel numb. Numb was better than the horror and pain he might be feeling instead. The disregard for what the people around him saw him do and heard him say, which he had felt only a moment ago as he tried to confess to Sora, had disappeared, and back was the usual self-consciousness and pride that had dictated Riku's actions all his life. He quickly wiped his tears away. He watched the paramedics place a large white sheet over Sora's face and lift him onto a stretcher.

There was nothing he could do. He had just watched the boy he had been secretly in love with for who-knew-how-long die right in front of him, and he had been useless to stop it. Riku had never seen anyone die before, not up close like that. No one had ever died in his arms, he had never heard anyone's last words before. And it hadn't been just _anyone_, it had been _Sora_. Sora, who was probably the most amazing, kind, friendly, selfless person he had ever known, who Riku had treated like shit ever since realizing that what he felt for him was what other guys felt for _girls _(which meant that Riku was _gay _and oh god his dad would never forgive him for that if he found out) had just died right there in his arms.

What was he supposed to do with all this pain? All this regret? How could he possibly manage it?

He felt dumb just standing there, and the emotionless, logical part of him decided that maybe he should leave. As he turned to go, however, the police officer caught his attention, small black notebook and pen in hand.

"Hey, kid, I gotta ask ya a few questions if ya don' mind."

"Um, I don't," he mumbled

"Not too many, I promise. This guy here" he jerked his thumb at the sunglasses man who was now walking away "says it seemed like you knew the kid there."

Riku gave a humorless mental snort. That man had heard him confess his _love_ to him and had told the cop that '_it seemed like he knew' _him.

"Um, yeah, his name was Sora, uh, Sora Strife. I knew him from school." His voice sounded small and unfamiliar in his ears.

"Right, you got any info that's not on his ID card?"

"Not—not really, I guess. I just saw what everyone else did. He jumped in front of that car and saved those girls."

"You see the license plate on that car by any chance?"

"No, um, I just know it was a black Mercedes. New-looking, probably a recent model. Sleek, expensive, dark tinted windows. That's all."

The man gave a sigh and looked at the notes he'd scribbled, then looked back up at Riku to give him a crooked grin around the toothpick clenched in his jaw.

"Alright. Thanks, kid, you've been great. You can go on home now, or where ever." The man clapped him roughly on the shoulder, tucked his pen behind his ear, and walked over to the woman who was frowning over a clipboard by their squad car.

And that was that. That was all Sora had officially been to him, that was all that could go on paper. A kid he knew from school. The years of self-induced torture and confusion and stomach flip-flops at the mere sight of his stupid smile, all the things he was never able to say, all the times he wished he could kiss him but had ended up punching him instead, and the only thing he could say when he died was that he knew him from school.

Riku swallowed thickly and started walking home. He didn't live very far, he had walked into town in the first place. When he arrived roughly thirty minutes later (though that walk usually only took fifteen) he bypassed his parents in the living room and aimed straight for his room. He locked the door and laid down carefully on his bed, curled up and facing the wall. He didn't move from that spot for the rest of the night.

Tidus' party came and went, and Riku didn't notice the texts asking him where he was. His parents didn't disturb him, probably figuring that he had left the house to spend a Saturday night with his friends without their noticing, as he often did. And if Riku cried at all, nobody heard it, and his pillow was dry by morning. And if his friends noticed that he seemed quieter than usual and that he didn't really smile much anymore, they certainly didn't mention anything.

Riku decided that one of the worst parts about being secretly in love with someone was that no one understood why you were so sad when they died.

.

* * *

.

A brisk knock at the door roused Roxas from his stupor in front of the television. After a pause of silence from any other resident in the house, he had to accept that he was the closest to the door and was therefore required to answer it. So he heaved himself up off the couch and dragged his sock-covered feet slowly and somewhat begrudgingly to the door. Upon opening it, he found two cops on his porch, a rather young, buxom woman with her dark hair tied back and an older, grumpy-looking man with sand-colored hair and leathery skin who was chewing on a toothpick. Roxas wasn't sure who he had been expecting to find at the door, but it had certainly not been the police. But he masked his slight surprise with the bored and rather gruff "What?" that he would have used to greet anyone who had been at the door.

If the cops had been at all taken aback by his rudeness, they did not show it. Instead, the woman said politely and with a strange amount of emotion which Roxas could not quite identify "Hello, my name is Officer Lockheart, and this is my partner Officer Highwind. Is this the residence of Sora Strife?"

"Yeah," Roxas replied, raising an eyebrow and eyeing the two of them skeptically.

"Are your parents home?" was her next question.

To which Roxas responded by turning his head back into the house and calling out loudly and with as much boredom as he could muster, "Mo-oom! Da-aad! There's some cops at the door! Something about Sora!"

There was some shuffling and then his parents appeared, his dad from the kitchen, wiping his wet hands on his pants, and his mom from the den where her office was. They wore identical expressions of mild concern as they approached, both with eyebrows drawn and lips pressed into a firm line.

"Hi, what seems to be the problem?" asked his dad.

His parents took his place in front of the door, and Roxas, now relieved from his door-answering duties, started to make his way back to his previous spot in front of the TV. But he did so slowly, taking small, leisurely steps backward down the hall as he listened to what the cops and his parents were saying. It was not every day, after all, that police came by asking about Sora.

"My name is Officer Lockheart and this is my partner Officer Highwind. Are you the parents of Sora Strife?" A rather redundant question, in Roxas' opinion, as he had clearly just called them his parents.

"Yes, we are. Is something wrong?"

Officer Lockheart took a breath and looked down for a second, seemingly to prepare herself for the reply. She looked back up at them, and suddenly her eyes were filled with such emotion—pity, Roxas was now able to recognize. As much pity and sympathy as a face could express. Roxas paused.

"I'm sorry, but there has been an accident earlier today. Your son Sora was hit by a car at the intersection of Bay and Palmview."

His mother gasped loudly and her hand flew over mouth. "Oh my God!" she breathed in a low whisper, as if afraid to be too loud in her shock. Her knees looked like they were in danger of buckling and his dad's arm quickly found itself around her shoulders as if to hold her in place. But maybe he was trying to hold himself in place too; He didn't look too steady either.

"What happened? Is he okay?" his dad asked, his voice as even and stern as usual.

She didn't look away this time, but held her sad, sympathetic gaze resolutely as she answered, "I'm afraid not. It seems that there were two children in the crosswalk when a car came speeding up and didn't stop at the light. It was about to hit the two girls when, according to eyewitnesses, your son ran into the street and pushed them out of the way. Your son was hit instead, and I'm afraid he died shortly after impact. The car didn't stop, but we have a good description of it and we're working on bringing the driver to justice. We're so sorry for your loss."

There was a pregnant pause after she finished as his parents seemed to search for words. Roxas froze dumbly in the hallway, mouth slightly open and arms hanging limply as he processed this information with difficulty. At this moment, Cloud came striding lightly down the stairs. He spared a glance at his statue-of-a-brother before frowning at the sight of police talking to his parents. He turned his frown back to Roxas, who still hadn't moved.

"What's going on?" he asked with a nod over to the police.

"Um, I guess Sora was hit by a car," Roxas answered, not taking his eyes off the scene in the doorway.

"What? Shit! Is he okay?"

"No, I don't think so," he replied lamely.

Cloud frowned harder at Roxas and his inadequate answers before dismissing him with an exasperated "puh" and walking over purposefully to find out what was going on for himself. Roxas blinked a few times as he watched Cloud take the door and open it wider to talk to the police officers.

"I'm sorry, what happened exactly?"

Cloud's presence seemed to both weaken and strengthen his parents at the same time, and they let him take control of the situation they couldn't quite get a grip on. Cloud's presence always seemed to be reassuring, and he took charge of stressful situations with ease and stern grace. Roxas was suddenly extremely grateful that Cloud had decided come back from college to visit this weekend. He wasn't quite sure what he and his parents would have done if Cloud hadn't been here to do his Cloud-things and make it all better. He had known what to do when their grandfather had gotten sick, when the car had broken down, when someone had tried to break into their house. He knew what to say to Sora when he did badly on another test and how to get their parents to stop yelling at him because of his grades. He also knew what to do when Roxas came home smelling like cigarette smoke and how to help him get rid of the smell before their parents noticed. Even if Cloud couldn't change the officer's answer to what had happened, somehow he would know what to do. And eventually their mom and dad would straighten up and take over again and things could go back to normal.

Roxas coughed suddenly, choking on spit that he was having some trouble swallowing correctly as realization of what was happening slowly forced its way though the thick façade of cool indifference and unfeeling that he had been building up ever since puberty.

Things _couldn't_ be normal again, it was impossible. Cloud couldn't make it better.

Sora was dead.

He wasn't ever going to come home again. He wasn't ever going to go to school again. He wasn't going to graduate. He wasn't going to grow up. Roxas would never see him again.

It was a particularly strange feeling to realize this because Roxas had spent most of his life ignoring Sora and pretending that he didn't exist, pretending they weren't related at school, pretending he simply didn't have a twin.

Because Roxas hated having a twin, hated sharing his birthdays, hated being a part of a duo—_Sora And Roxas;__The Twins. _He hated sharing an identity, instead of being able to just exist as himself. Besides, Sora just wasn't _cool_. He was too happy, too perky, too full of energy, always laughing and smiling and talking to absolutely _everyone_ and shit like that. It was annoying. And it wasn't _cool. _Sora had a lot of friends and certainly seemed to lighten up any room he stepped into, but that did not make up for the fact that he was a complete dork. A loud, hyperactive, idiot dork who was always bothering Roxas with one thing or another. More popular kids tended to pick on and bully him, mostly because he was kind of scrawny and always wore an expression like a confused puppy. That Riku prick, the fucking soccer star Golden Boy, had a particular fondness for tormenting him, something Roxas personally always thought was a little _weird _and kind of overstepped normal bully/victim dynamics_—_not that anyone ever asked him. But getting that kind of treatment from jocks like that wasn't good, socially, so Roxas had to try his best to distance himself from Sora in public, lest his own reputation as a bad-ass be tainted. There were a lot of people at school who didn't even know that they were brothers due to Roxas' hard work ignoring Sora. Which was definitely hard work—that kid was persistent, if nothing else. Roxas had often thanked the lords of genetics that they were only fraternal twins, and ones with different hair color at that. Sora had brown hair, while Roxas was quite blond. There was at least _some_ plausible deniability.

And now he didn't have a twin, technically, because his twin was dead.

Sora was dead.

There was a sudden painful constriction in his chest, and somehow there wasn't enough air around him there in the hallway. Roxas had a moment of panic—perhaps there _was _such thing as twin telepathy, and now that Sora was dead, he would die, too. He'd heard about things like that on TV. It could happen. But Roxas wasn't dying, and he had to remind himself of this.

Before his small panic attack could be noticed by the group in the doorway discussing specifics about what to do with the body—_God, how grotesque!_— Roxas sprinted up the stairs and into his room, shutting the door quietly so as to draw as little attention to himself as possible. He sat at his desk and stared into his blank computer screen, at the mounds of papers and books and cd's and overall junk cluttering the remaining desk space. But the chair was too uncomfortable and the clutter slightly menacing, so he moved to the bed. But the bed was too soft, the blankets too cushioned and strangely suffocating, like he was being sucked down into dark, fluffy depths. So he moved to the floor, where he could count on some resistance, sitting with his back against the bed and knees drawn up to his chest. Better.

His hands were shaking by then, so he clenched them in an effort to control it. The tightness in his chest had not let up, but had spread into his stomach, where it gnawed and twisted his gut like a small feral animal. And a strange pressure was building up behind his eyes. But they weren't _tears_. Roxas wasn't about to _cry. _Because that would be stupid. Roxas didn't cry.

But...

Sora was dead.

Roxas hadn't even _s_een him today. Couldn't remember the last time they'd had a real conversation.

He was never coming back.

Sora's room was just on the other side of the wall to Roxas' right, sitting uncharacteristically silent. And silent it would remain from now on. Roxas would no longer be bothered by Sora's racket as he talked to his friends on the phone. He would never have to listen to Vampire Weekend or Matt and Kim or MGMT or Childish Gambino or the goddamned Beastie Boys constantly blaring through the thin wall dividing their rooms ever again. Sora played music when he got dressed in the morning, when he was in the shower, when he did his homework, when he played video games. It was even worse when he would sing along. Because somehow Sora seemed to know the words to every song that had ever been made. He even knew the words to the songs Roxas listened to, and Roxas didn't even know it was _possible_ to sing along to Sonic Youth or Radiohead or Nirvana. He was not a particularly good singer, though, and was usually out of tune, so sometimes is was truly painful. He was just full of constant chatter and endless, unnecessary noise. Sora had never known how to just be _quiet_ for even a fucking _minute_, and Roxas never had a moment's peace when Sora was anywhere nearby.

But now the silence was pressing and painful and a million times worse than all the noise Sora could ever produce.

_Soraisdeadhe'snevercomingbackSoraisdeadhe 'snevercomingbackSoraisdeadhe 'snevercomingbackSoraisdead ..._

That mantra kept running over and over in his mind.

What kind of idiot runs into the street like that? Who actually saves people from being hit by cars? How the hell could he just sacrifice himself like that? And for someone he didn't even know! Some dumb girls. But if Sora were going to die, that seemed to be the only appropriate way for him to do it. He was too resilient to be taken down by something as self-absorbed as a terminal illness or as dumb as an accident he had no control over. That was Sora—so considerate of others, so fucking _selfless_. It had always been another one of those qualities about Sora that Roxas hated. He would be a hero, might even make the news. Boy Saves Girls In Fatal Hit-And-Run. People would look up to him, admire him for doing something they know they wouldn't have been able to do. And Roxas knew that Sora hadn't done it for any kind of glory, probably hadn't even considered that other people would think of him as a hero. He had just done it to save someone. Because someone had been in trouble and he'd had the opportunity to help them. Stupid Sora. He had done it _on purpose_. He had _known _what he was doing, must have known that he would die. Why would he just let his life go like that? Hadn't he been happy? He'd seemed happy, at least.

_Soraisdeadhe'snevercomingbackSoraisdeadhe 'snevercomingbackSoraisdeadde addeaddeaddead..._

A tear slipped free of his eye, and as if it had sounded a starting gun, more and more followed after until they were streaming down his face, and Roxas was as powerless to stop it as he was against a stampede. He choked on a sob, and it was an ugly noise.

Wrapped up in his selfish world of convenience, relative privilege, and posh indifference, he had never quite realized it was possible to be so unbelievably, uncontrollably, painfully _sad_. And if he had ever stopped to think about it, he would have realized how stupid that was, but still. He was nonetheless wholly unprepared for it.

Roxas spent the rest of the night and the next few months trying to figure out why it was that if he'd always pretended that Sora wasn't there, how it could be so painful when he actually wasn't.

.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading. I know it was a bit cliche, but sometimes that's what happens. What can you do about it? Reviews, comments, questions, concerns, corrections are all welcome.


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